Spooks in the Machine

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Spooks in the Machine

If wiretap software is digital cancer, then a digital wiretap bill introduced in the US House and Senate on August 9 could be considered digital chemotherapy. Like its analog kin, digital chemo will make you sick; it's a poison to be willfully ingested for the "greater good." Sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Representative Don Edwards (D-California), this legislation will require telephone companies to ensure their digital networks are "wiretap ready." Without it, the FBI probably would have had its original, much more sweeping wiretap proposal snuck into law as a rider on a crime bill, allowing it to become law through the proverbial "back door" and with little public debate.

Although the FBI got a large portion of what it wanted - a codified, put-up-or-shut-up piece of legislation that mandates wiretap access to almost every communication network in the United States - it didn't get everything. While the bill as introduced covers providers of public telecommunications, it doesn't let the bureau get its hands on the coveted Internet or any other online system.

While the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been catching heat from some in the Net community for rolling over and playing dead on this one, many of the provisions in the Leahy/Edwards bill in fact limit the government's current wiretapping authority. Among the added protections the bill outlines is a requirement that the feds get a court order if they want to poke around in your online records - whom you've sent mail to, what you've downloaded - while currently all it takes is an administrative subpeona, signed by the investigators themselves. The legislation would also prohibit the use of certain devices for tracking your transaction history and expand current privacy provisions to cover wireless phones and some radio-based communications.

According to Jerry Berman, policy director for the EFF, the organization's position on the bill is "complicated by the fact that we don't think a digital telephony bill is necessary. We're not opposing this legislation," he added. After all, the EFF helped develop the Leahy/Edwards bill. "We support the privacy provisions. But it has to be this version and this package." Says Berman: "It's still a troubling precedent to have government make industry think first about making networks wiretap ready."

While some privacy groups are pleased with the Leahy/Edwards bill, compared with the FBI's original plans, the Electronic Privacy Information Center continues to fight it. The center believes the privacy protections don't go far enough and that the FBI has yet to present to the public any concrete evidence proving it needs the legislation. In fact, the center has filed a suit against the FBI, seeking to force the bureau's release of this documentation. Stay posted.